Book-friends and book-best-friends

This is going to sound weird, but if you’re a Reader, you’ll totally understand where I’m coming from.

When you read a good book, that book becomes your friend.

It’s totally strange and maybe even a bit psychologically deviant but it’s true. That book becomes like your closest friend, someone you’re spending time with and loving the conversation.

I will admit, I have sometimes loved a book so much I will hug it like I’m hugging a person. There, I have confessed my mental disturbance to all the blogosphere.

But those of you who are Readers will completely get me.

You devour books by favorite authors because you became good friends with one of her titles, and you hope to find new friends in her other titles. Your chances are good since you already loved one of her stories.

You’re always on the lookout for a new friend. Some books disappoint, but then suddenly you’ll stumble on a book (which might not even have that great a cover or back cover blurb) and you’re caught in an amazing story with amazing characters and you know you’ve found a friend.

Some of my books are book-friends, but some are book-best-friends. They’re the ones I’ll keep because I could see myself rereading them, they were that good.

I was thinking today about why some books are book-friends and why some are book-best-friends. My book-friends are still highly entertaining, enthralling reads. I just finished one yesterday. But it wasn’t a book-best-friend.

I think that for my book-best-friends, there is something about the characters that I especially love. I relate to them on a deeper level, or perhaps I admire them greatly. Their stories move me deep in my gut rather than just being an entertaining read.

I love my book-friends, but I am also constantly on the lookout for a new book-best-friend. I also do not limit the number of book-best-friends that I have, the more the merrier, in my opinion. But since my shelves are overflowing, I have gotten some book-best-friends as ebooks and given away my print copies so that my book-best-friends take up less real estate in my house.

So my blog friends, do you feel me? I know some of you non-Readers are going to tell me to hie to a psychologist, but you Readers know what I’m talking about. What are some book-best-friends you’ve got?